34
" Riley pulled on his jeans and she almost moaned. Focus, Mercy.
"I’ll check,” he said, zipping up those damn jeans as she slid on her own. “But we might get lucky with an insomniac.”
When he turned, she saw the marks on his back were almost healed. Fast, even for a changeling. Which meant Riley was more powerful than she’d guessed, more than he let on.
There was nothing flashy about him. Just
—“What the—” His hands were on her waist and his mouth on hers before she could do more than gasp. Lightning. Bright. Sizzling. Perfect. This time she did moan, wrapping her arms around him and luxuriating in his strength, in the sheer speed with which he’d come at her. With both of them only wearing jeans, her breasts were pressed against the exquisite roughness of the hairs on his chest. She rubbed against him, giving in to the leopard’s innate sensuality.
He tore away his lips but they remained less than a millimeter apart. “This is your fault.”
“Hell, no.” She sucked on his neck, biting him a little too hard for emphasis. “You jumped my bones.” Tugging back her head with a hand fisted in her hair, he glared down at her.
“You were all but licking me the way you were looking.”
“Looking’s not the same as touching.” Her mouth watered at the idea of licking him. They’d been in too much of a rush last night. Even the second and third time. As if they’d both been hungry so long, they’d needed to gorge.
But—“We don’t have time for this.”
He held her for another couple of seconds, pure male muscle and heated skin. “We need to make time. "
― Nalini Singh , Branded by Fire (Psy-Changeling, #6)
35
" So,” Riley asked, “what have you got for me?” Taking his hand, she placed it palm-down over her heart. It would hurt like a bitch, she thought, but he was hers to protect as much as she was his.
“Me.” And she opened up her soul, laid herself bare. The mating bond shoved through her body like white lightning, hot and wild and right. Incredibly, wonderfully right. His energy was different from hers—wolf, not leopard—but it laced itself with her own until their combined strength was far greater than either would’ve ever been alone.
“Wow.” He blinked, swaying on his feet. “Damn. "
― Nalini Singh , Branded by Fire (Psy-Changeling, #6)
